1. We live in a cause-and-effect world in which we have immense personal power. The degree of personal power we can exercise in our life depends on how much we know about the cause and effect relationship in a given area. Commit to learning about life and the natural laws of the universe.
The most important natural law I learned was how the mind works, and how to harness it to create change in my life. The conscious mind is the conduit to the subconscious mind, and the subconscious mind works without judgment to create whatever is put into it. If we put good things into our mind, then we get good things back. We get whatever we think about. This law is like the law of gravity. It works whether we know about it or not, understand it or not and believe it or not. It just works! A number of years ago I viewed a video called “The Secret,” which I found on www.thesecret.tv, and which is a fabulous presentation on how the mind works.
Understanding this law gave me the power to change my life. I knew I was responsible for putting the proper things into my mind and minimizing improper things from my mind. If I could change my mind, I could change my life.
The challenge was how to put the correct thoughts into my conscious mind, so my subconscious mind would go to work producing them in my life.
I discovered the most powerful tool for programming the mind was the proper use of positive affirmations. Correctly written affirmations teach the mind a new way of understanding reality, and trigger the subconscious mind to begin creating the thing that you are affirming, so the affirmed thing actually becomes part of your life experience. Affirmations must state things as if they already exist, because this allows the subconscious to create this reality in the present, rather than postponing it until the future. Example: not “I will be calm, controlled, and professional,” but “I am calm, controlled, and professional.”
I wrote affirmations that carefully avoided using negative words. The subconscious mind doesn’t pick up on words like “no” or “don’t,” so these negative words teach the mind to create the thing that you are trying to avoid. It is important to affirm what you want, instead of what you don’t want. The subconscious mind gives you inspirations and intuition about what needs to be done in your life and attracts people and opportunities to make your affirmations a reality. You begin making different choices with different results.
During this period, I began saying the following basic affirmation to myself:
"I live in paradise, play in paradise, and have a charmed, fortunate, simple, blissful life, and a fantastic wife. And I am fantastic. I’m fun, friendly, likable, successful, rich, and the happiest, most fortunate man in the world. I have achieved all my important goals in life, and continue to experience higher and higher levels of joy, happiness, and laughter. I have fun. I’m excited about life, and have a strong sense of well-being. I am a positive, enthusiastic, healthy, handsome, honorable, fit, strong, studly man with class and style. I have an abundance of time, smile often, and am a calm, confident, capable, courteous, courageous, wise man with an outstanding perspective on life, who really enjoys living the great adventure.”
Most of the things in this affirmation were not true when I first started saying it, but the vast majority of them have come true over the years.
I use affirmations to allow me to experience whatever I want in my life, big or small. Example:
I have always been a mouth breather when I sleep at night, which is normally not a problem but causes me a sore throat if the air conditioning is running. I finally decided to do something about it and wrote this affirmation: “I sleep soundly for seven or eight hours each night with “my mouth closed, breathe through my nose, and wake up refreshed.” I say it as soon as I lie down each night and this lifelong bad habit was resolved in just three weeks. I have used affirmations successfully on dozens and dozens of things with tremendous success.
My use of affirmations gave me the tool to transform my life, and I continue to use them every day.”
2. Take total responsibility for everything that happens in your life. This includes those things you have control over and those things you do NOT have control over. You always have control over how you react! Pouting, hiding out, making excuses, rationalizing, blaming others, feeling sorry for yourself, avoiding the difficult task and procrastination are all indications that you are not taking responsibility.
3. Never play the victim role or the blame game. There is absolutely no payoff to this attitude. Never look at what you’ve lost, avoid running your misfortune over and over in your mind, stay calm and accept setbacks gracefully. Realize that problems, bad people, tough times and mistakes are your teachers. Problems are guidelines not stop signs. The question is: What do I need to do to capitalize on these events?
4. It Doesn't Matter Where You Are. It Matters Where You're Going. Right or wrong, your fault or not, you are where you are and you can't change the past. Focus on the things you have left, learn from your mistakes, take advantage of your new wisdom and make a plan. Then take the action steps necessary to begin moving in the direction of your choice. This is an attitude that helps you get back up when you’ve been knocked down and keeps you looking forward and moving forward.
5. Be courageous. Recognize the most debilitating human emotion is fear. Learn ways to keep it in perspective, minimize it when applicable and harness it to your benefit when need be.
6. Maintain integrity, sense of fair play, compassion and inner strength. Do the right fair honest thing. An excellent reputation will inspire people to support and help you and visa versa. There is no replacement for pride and self-respect.
7. Evaluate the results of your choice making. Learn from your bad choices and avoid making the same mistakes. Do more of what is working. Sleep on important or emotional decisions overnight. Remember our life is predominantly the result of our past choice making and we can change our life by making different choices.
8. Reliability matters. Say what you mean, do what you say, show up on time and return messages promptly. This is an important way to stand out from the crowd.
9. Choose a healthy lifestyle. Exercise regularly, eat right, maintain a healthy weight, moderate alcohol/pot use, and completely avoid cigarette smoking and hard drugs. Good health is the cornerstone of all good things in life.
10. Success and happiness is a journey, not a destination. It's the trip that counts. Make your trip a great adventure, the good times and the bad.
CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
1. Daily affirmations: Write your affirmations in a positive way as if whatever you want to occur has already occurred. Do not affirm what you don’t want to happen by using the words; “no”, “not”, “don't” as your subconscious mind does not hear these words. Affirm what you want in your life. Avoid using “will” or “going to”, as these words refer to it happening in the future. Your affirmation must be realistically accomplishable (a 5 foot tall man in his 60’s cannot successfully affirm to be a star basketball player in the NBA or live to be 200). Say your affirmation at least twice per day, in the morning and at night.
2. Positive self-talks: Listen to what you are saying in your head and keep it positive. You get what you think about. Thoughts become things because of the Law of Attraction.
3. Visualize what you want in your life as if you already have it. Visualize events you handled badly as you would more successfully handle them in the future.
4. Post pictures of what you want in your life and look at them frequently.
Also read a list of all of the things you have to be happy about in life to help you gain perspective when you feel depressed.
MY DIET AFFIRMATION (I lost 30 pounds and kept it off for over 35 years)
I maintain my highly disciplined strict exercise and dietary program for the rest of my life and weigh between ___&___. I eat lots of vegetables, a moderate amount of protein, a small amount of fat, one or two fruits per day and lots of pure, clean, healthy, refreshing water. I only eat bread in an open-faced sandwich and eat a small amount of beans, corn, pasta, potatoes, rice and sugar.
INCORRECT AFFIRMATIONS
1. I am going to be more patient with my kids (This refers to it happening in the future).
2. I will read my affirmations daily (This refers to it happening in the future).
3. I do not lose my temper (Stated in a negative way. State what you want to happen).
CORRECT AFFIRMATIONS
1. I am patient with my kids.
2. I read my affirmations daily.
3. I am calm and composed.
FURTHER STUDY
Read or listen to Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Available at Amazon.com and success.com.
Condensed version is available on audible.com by Mitch Horowitz
Watch The Secret. Available at www.thesecret.tv and Netflix.
Read NIXLAND My Wild Ride in the Inner City Check Cashing Industry
Available at Amazon.com
Tom Nix
NIXLAND, LLC
Tel: 562 495-3732
Fax: 562 612-1004
www.nixland.net